On emergent organization designs, future of work, and the impact of the digital era..

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Micro-Learning as a Workplace Learning Strategy

In today's time-crunched,
attention-deficit and multitasking world, micro-learning seems to have cropped
up as a possible solution to corporate learning and personal development.
However, what exactly is micro-learning remains a bit of an elusive concept
with different people defining it in different ways. Should it be something
that takes less than 5 minutes to consume? Can a 10-minute learning byte be
defined as micro-learning? Would a commoncraft-style video be
considered micro-learning? Is an infographic summarizing and presenting data
and text micro-learning? In my earlier posts, I have written about the possible
roles it can play in formal,
informal and incidental learning. I have briefly explored the possibilities
of transition from courses
to micro-learning in the context of workplace learning. Wikipedia has a
good definition of the concept:

Micro-learning can also be understood as a process of subsequent,
"short" learning activities, i.e. learning through interaction with
micro-content objects in small timeframes.

I have tried to define some of the
key characterized and put them together in the diagram below. However, these are
in no way definitive or the only characteristics but a set of guidelines…

The way the term is being bandied
about now would make one think that it is a new phenomenon designed to solve a
myriad of workplace learning challenges. The term and the concept has suddenly
captured the imagination of workplace learning professionals and course
designers as well as clients due to a variety of reasons:

The
rise of mobile devices and ubiquitous connectivity

The
deluge of available information and decreasing attention span

The
need for just-in-time and just-enough information to get the job done

The
entry of enterprise collaboration platforms in organizations

The
distributed and dispersed nature of workers leading to a need for online collaboration

Most of these phenomena are interconnected
and impact one another. It is critical not only understand the drivers behind
this sudden surge but also how it can be implemented in workplace learning
strategy.

The Drivers

An influx of mobile devices have
changed how people interact with content. It is now more likely to be in short
bursts or 2~5 minutes, several times a day rather than for long durations once
or twice a day as was the case when we were primarily tied to our laptops or
desktops. Our work is also becoming location agnostic. We are no longer tied to
a desk and a building to get our jobs done. Neither are we always co-located
with the teams we work with. This free-flowing nature of work requires rapid
exchange of information and sharing of knowledge in byte-sized chunks that are
easy to assimilate.

Working out loud
is one of the means to make collaboration and work effective in today’s
context. Similarly, technicians in a remote location can quickly record a video
of the issues they are facing and post it on their internal collaboration platform
for a solution from the experts who may be located half way across the world. This
instantaneous kind of information and knowledge exchange, peer support, and
sharing of tacit knowledge happen in short bursts. Because these interactions
are typically need driven and occur spontaneously, we don’t classify these as
micro-learning instances. But IMHO these are very effective micro-learning
occurrences that take place in our daily lives – professional and personal –
and make it possible for us to function effectively.

A deluge of content coupled with
an ever decreasing shelf-life of knowledge is forcing people to access a huge
mass of information just to keep on top of things. This telling article from
HBR – When
Learning at Work Becomes Overwhelming -
talks about the unrealistic levels of learning requirements from workers
today. This constant need to add new skills and knowledge is leading to a reluctance
to spend too much time on something that may prove to be irrelevant in a couple
of months’ time. The focus is on the bare minimum needed to get one’s work done
effectively. Is that a good thing or bad is the topic for another post. The
reality is that individuals and organizations are looking for options to keep
on top of things in the easiest possible manner.

Add to these an ever decreasing
attention span, technology disruption, complex and distributed workflows – and one
can see why micro-learning seems to be looming up all too frequently. It seems
somehow to be irrevocably tied to all the items mentioned above. Organizations,
in a bid to make learning accessible and digestible, are trying to include
micro-learning as a part of their workplace learning design strategy.

However, by welding
micro-learning to technology, we could be missing the core principles. The
questions to ask are: How novel is
micro-learning? Is it a new phenomenon or a new and catchy phrase gaining
popularity in the L&D and business world because of its linkage to mobile
learning?

Any learning or insight that can
occur in a few minutes or so is a form of micro-learning. By wedding it to
technology, we are perhaps giving it a new form but the concept is not new.

A mentor giving feedback on a task done can be micro-learning unless it is an
extended feedback session.

An
email with a few lines of instruction is micro-learning.

An
app with a 2-minute recipe is micro-learning.

A
comment from a peer on one’s work.

Tweet
chats, telephone conversations, IMs, coffee time discussions – any and all of
these can be micro-learning

Micro-learning can be formally designed and built into
learning programs in various forms or it can occur as informal exchanges of knowledge and information either online or
face-to-face. L&D today needs to include micro-learning as a strategy and incorporate
formally designed micro-learning into programs as well as facilitate informal
interactions that lead to individual learning and organizational problem
solving.

Implementing Micro-Learning in the Workplace

Working
out loud on the enterprise collaboration platform is not only narration of
work but also entails the use of principles of micro-learning (sharing
byte-sized processes to help others learn from their experiences). In short, our
days are filled with moments of learning – whether by design or by happenstance.
I saw the movie Cinderella over the weekend which has this line: Just because it is done doesn’t mean it
should be done. The line stuck in my head because of its broad
applicability and the profundity underlying the simplicity. To me, this is
micro-learning.

L&D and
business are trying to define and give a coherent shape to micro-learning
because we want to “productize” it. We want to design capsules and bytes of
information in various forms like videos, podcasts, text, infographic, etc. “Productization”
shouldn’t necessarily imply technology enabled micro-learning bytes. Can
managers and mentors be taught to think in terms of micro-learning? Can they
give just enough feedback or on the job guidance in one go to adhere to the
principles of micro-learning? It is possible to design a weekly feedback
session for team members that will not exceed 10 mins. The manager could wear a
mentor’s hat and the conversation could revolve around 3~4 key questions with a
time limit of 10~15 mins.

What are the two things you learned this week/fortnight?

What obstacles are you facing?

How can I help you?

These kinds of
conversations will not only enable the employee to keep on track but also
provide them with a tool to reflect upon and extract their learning. This can
be hugely enlightening and invigorating. Appraisals and feedback need not be a
painful and somewhat useless discussion occurring twice a year far removed from
the time of the incidences. Feedback discussions can be a part of an organization’s
micro-learning strategy.

This was just
an example to show that micro-learning, with some careful consideration and
design thinking, can be a critical part of workplace learning in various forms –
informal and formal and also social and collaborative. By defining and
socializing the principles behind micro-learning, L&D can enable
organizations apply these in various contexts by helping business leaders,
managers and mentors understand these. It can happen anytime, anywhere, in any
form – synchronously, asynchronously, and semi-synchronously. It can occur in
self-driven learning, in peer-to-peer learning, in a manager-worker discussion,
in a social learning setting, and be incorporated into a formally designed
course.